Okay, enough with the fantasy stuff. Now to reality. Or as Rudy would probably say, “Truth as we know it.”

What happened yesterday?
The Manafort jury deliberation continues. Speculation runs to two different conclusions:
1) The longer the jury is out, the better for the defense. They might have a hung jury due to one juror not being sure.
2) They haven’t been out that long and there is a lot of evidence to go through. Especially considering that they did not get to see the documentary evidence during the trial. Also, the judge’s instructions were oral and not written out in transcript form. If the jury is being careful this means it will take time to go through all the charges. The last thing they asked was what pieces of evidence went with which charges. Apparently, they have to figure this out for themselves.

Meanwhile, there is talk that Michael Cohen might be hit with tax fraud charges to the tune of twenty million dollars. I’ve also heard figures of two hundred million. Maybe, the two hundred is income and the twenty is tax on it. This relates to his taxi medallion business. A business which typically involves shady mafia type characters.

It has been reported that White House Counsel, Don McGhan, has spoken to the Mueller team for over thirty hours, that the president did not invoke Presidential privilege, and therefore McGhan told them everything. What he said is not known. However, others in the White House who have spoken to the Mueller team have been surprised by how much the Mueller team knows. They report that the Mueller team knows more about what was going on then they did, and they were there!

Oh, the president made a bunch of stupid tweets. Rudy said more silly stuff. He is being taken to the woodshed for saying, “The truth is not the truth.” Taken out of context it’s pretty funny. He also said to Chuck Todd, “Don’t do this to me.” However, if you listen to the interview and watch Giuliani it’s not as bad as it sounded. Poor fumbling Rudy. What he meant was that one person’s version of the facts may not be the complete truth or even true. He said, however, “The truth is not the truth” (in that instance). Chuck Todd put his head down and into his hand. Rudy mimicked Todd and said, “Don’t to that to me.” (I.e. Don’t make fun of me by putting your head down in your hand.)

Tekrit in 1914

Then there are the toss up races. Republicans are dumping lots and lots of money into trying to win them by putting in ground crews and running disgusting negative ads.

Then we get to Mr. Papadopoulis. He is due to be sentenced. Apparently the Mueller team is not happy with him. We thought he cut a plea deal. According to court papers it was not a standard deal, far from it. The special counsel has said that Mr. Papadopoulis has not been helpful. In fact, they say he lied repeatedly even when he knew differently, and he knew this would affect their investigation. (I had heard earlier that because of Papadopoulis lies the specail counsel did not get their hands on a witness before that person left the country.)
The special counsel has therefore recommended that Mr. Papadopoulis get six months in jail. To I guess think things over. No doubt we’ll be forced to look at his hot Russian wife pouting about his unfair treatment.
Speaking of hot looking wives, have you seen Wilbur Mills wife? My god, that little wimp, has a little blond cutie.
As soon as the jury is through with Mr. Manafort and this trial there’s another trial starting in September. This trial had like 200 pieces of evidence; the next one has over 1,000. I don’t remember what the charges are, I think it’s that he acted like a crooked scumbag, but I’m just speculating.

Now there’s another little thing to mention. The Dutch guy who pleaded guilty to lying to the special counsel and spent 30 days in jail. Remember he’s married to the daughter of a Russian oligarch. One of the oligarchs mentioned in the Steele dossier. He’s head of AlfaBank. The bank that Trump had servers talking to during the campaign. The article that I read that first kicked off my interest in all this. Trump has never explained what those servers were doing. The lawyer AlfaBank hired to clean everything up is now head of the criminal investigation unit at the FBI.
Remember that banks in Russia are not like banks in the U.S. They are essentially extensions of the Russian government and the oligarchs. AlfaBank and it’s leader have direct ties to Putin. Also, remember that there are many floors in Trump Tower that the condos were bought by Russians.
I’m not one to speculate wildly but is it too much of a stretch to think that a few guys in one of those Russian condos came down and set up the server for Trump? I mean, no one on his team is smart enough to have done it. Especially, because of the sophisticated and unusual setup.
Is it also too much to think that Putin doesn’t have a direct line into the FBI and all it’s criminal investigations?

Is there anyone in the Trump circle who hasn’t talked to Russians?

There are now 175 people asking for their security clearances to be revoked based on what Trump has done to Brennan. Make that 176! I want my security clearance revoked! (and as I’ve pointed out – I don’t have one! But that hasn’t stopped the president before; I hope it doesn’t stop him now.)

We are at a historic turning point. This is the last day of the Trump presidency that is in quad digits to go. (Is that correct? Quad digits?) Tomorrow we have 999 days to go.
It seems the walls are collapsing around Trump, but he’s has always managed to wriggle out, so don’t count him out. The worst part of it is that then there is Pence. My god which is worse? It’s a question I won’t worry myself with, again, right now. I’ve got other things to address.
There are a number of bits I wish to string together. It’s hard to know where to start because they are just bits and when you don’t have the whole story cogently formed all I can do is say, “Look at this! Look at that!” Then, maybe, by picking up the various bits and putting them back down a whole will emerge.
Bill Maher brought up an interesting idea in his last show. He said that when people are asked about something they may say one thing, but when no one is looking they say quite another. One example was what wives say about husbands. “He’s wonderful.” etc. But when they search the term on google they look up “mean.” etc.
He suggested the idea of an avatar, and that our avatar may not be the good heroic benign figure we imagine, but rather a cruel petty one. (I may have interjected my own opinion in here. The idea being that what we imagine and what we do or say could be quite different.)
This came up in the context of the Academy Awards. Their ratings have been dropping the last few years. It is thought that part of the problem is that the Academy keeps awarding movies that few go to see, and the blockbuster movies don’t get any recognition. They have a new category “popular” something or other to try and address this issue.
We’ve seen this issue come up in other areas too. There was a movie service that recommended “other movies you might like” based on what you had already looked at. Some folks were startled by the suggestions, because they wanted to believe they watched a different type of movie. I still remember the NPR article about it which finished with a line that suggested perhaps the service would recommend “Hot Tub Time Machine” to you and not something more high brow.
My mother used to refer to Walter Mitty a lot. “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” was a short story written by James Thurber that first appeared in the New Yorker in 1939, two years after my mother graduated from college. It’s worth looking up in Wikipedia. It’s been made into a movie twice. Walter Mitty was, according to the story, an ineffectual person who spent most of his life dreaming heroic dreams, and not really paying attention to the real world around him.
I’ve seen this idea expressed in a great one panel cartoon by Gahan Wilson. There is a French Poodle in the cockpit of an airplane that is clearly headed into a deep dive. The caption reads, “Suddenly, Fifi grabbed the controls.”
There is a gap between who we are and who we wish to be and who we see ourselves as and who we wish to be seen as. It manifests itself in many different ways. Therapy is often the art of helping someone see who they really are and getting them to act in accordance with that person. “Thoughts, words, actions – all in a line.” Is typically the way that is put. (Providing it is in a socially acceptable context I would posit.)
Nowhere does the image and the reality seem to be widening than in politics. I’ll leave that for now as an issue to return to at a later date, because there are a lot of fish that need frying today.

I saw a little something on TV yesterday. I was sitting in a bar writing and I only saw the text displayed so I don’t have all the particulars, but here’s what I gleaned. There was an author being interviewed. He had written a book whose premise was that Trump could be impeached, Constitutionally, on eight different grounds only two of which the Mueller investigation would touch on. Wow, let that sink in for a minute.

Okay, moving on. The bar also had old books on shelves, part of an effort to look upscale. One of the books was a bound volume that looked like an old smaller version of a volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica. It was, in fact, a 1914 volume of The National Geographic. Perhaps, Nat Geo was published like the Encyclopedia before it went to it’s monthly format? Most interesting was that many of the article were similar to today’s. There was a picture of a Piping Plover, an article about going down the Grand Canyon, another on Turkey with pictures of Constantinople (it wasn’t renamed Istanbul until 1934). There were pictures of Tikrit and the beautiful gardens of Aleppo. It’s a much different world now.

Then a little something popped up on Facebook. A mime saying McConnell had taken money from the Russians. I have heard rumblings like this for awhile. I’ve had my suspicions. Some on the fringes of the intelligence community have said this for a long time. They are often proven right, months later when CNN, or MSNBC have “Breaking News” that they just discovered this sort of thing. Also the New York Times, which tends to be ahead of the pack on these kinds of stories. (No wonder Trump hates them!)

So I did some nosing around and found a story from 2017 that the Dallas Morning News entitled “How Putin’s oligarchs funneled millions into GOP campaigns.” The story has been updated this year. To understand perhaps why the Republican establishment isn’t doing anything about Russian interference this article sheds light as to why. When I say “sheds light” I’m not talking a little pen flashlight; I’m talking 1500 Watt candle power type light.
It turns out that the Republican party and various individual elected Republican officials have been taking huge sums of money from Russians. They’ve even changed the laws to make it legal and to hide their donors so that it is even easier to take their money. The players are the same names that keep cropping up in other contexts. You’ve got the Russian oligarchs, watched and manipulated by Putin. There are the elected officials, their PACs and campaign funds, the shadowy underhanded dirty Republican and conservative gophers, and the people in the Trump orbit. The guy that stuck out for me was the fellow who wrote “Clinton Cash.” Steve Bannon had mentioned that book with Ari Melber as being all the opposition research they needed to go after Clinton.
The book was written by a guy who has made a career of going after the Clintons for decades. The allegations made in the book are spurious and were driven by Bannon and Breitbart, and by Fox. (In fact when I put into google “Clinton Cash” I got a reference to three interviews on Fox dated January, March and June of this year; with the titles: “ ‘Clinton Cash’ author talks DOJ probe of Clinton Foundation” on two of the clips and he later headline “ ‘Clinton Cash’ author reacts to IG report on email probe.”

It should also be remembered that Bannon used a bunch of non-profits to produce conservative political documentaries (all of which skirts legality). “Clinton Cash” being one example, based on the book. It should also be pointed out that the book had to undergo multiple edits for egregious errors and the author was forced to admit that he had no “smoking gun,” but rather a bunch of unfounded claims with little or no backup.
What does seem to be clear is that The Clinton Foundation took in a lot of money to use for good around the world. Did they take a little for themselves? Maybe. Chelsea had a salary. Compare that with say Ivanka and her outright grab for herself behavior. The Clinton Foundation has improved conditions and addressed problems around the world, what have the Republicans done with their money? Clinton Cash tried to paint the Clintons as corrupt. They appear to be scouts in the face of what is going on now.
At the same time Bannon was pushing the movie Clinton Cash and the right wing websites were attacking Hillary, Mitch McConnell was taking in millions from the Russians. Let that sink in for a second.
Who else was in on the money grab? Steve Mnunchin, Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham.
It seems the Russians tried to give a little money to W and got rejected, but Trump? No problem, they took millions. So did McConnell, right after seeing intelligence reports telling him the Russians were interfering.
What did the Republicans do about all this? They changed the regulations and laws so that it was easier for Russians via intermediaries to give them money, and for the Republicans to hide the fact that they got the money.

And who are the Russians in question? The usual suspects: Deripaska, Vekselberg, and a new player – Blavatnik. There are also the underlings with dual citizenship or related to the Russians but holding U.S. citizenship: Intrater, Shustorovich, Kukes. These people gave “small” donations (e.g. $41,000 etc. Small by their standards) before 2016. But in 2016 they ramped up into the millions to Republican Pacs and the Trump campaign. Why? Why, indeed.

In other disturbing judicial proceedings. Remember that the Supreme Court ruled in the case of former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell that it’s okay to do pay to play and quid pro quo arrangements because otherwise how could they do their job? (This raises the question of ‘what is their job?’ at least it does in my opinion. Remember McDonnell’s wife tried to leave the State Mansion with the silverware! I mean. Really?)

So what we have is the typical Republican playbook writ large by conservative operators. They attack the other side all the while doing the same thing, but much worse. I’ve been talking about the money aspect. We could talk about the sex side of things, and it’s the same. They yell about Bill’s six blowjobs while they are busy having affairs, divorcing one wife for another, etc.

Here is the link to the Dallas Morning News article:
https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2017/12/15/putins-proxies-helped-funnel-millions-gop-campaigns

Here is the link to the Bannon media sources for Clinton Cash:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/how-bannons-multimedia-machine-drove-a-movement-and-paid-him-millions/2017/04/09/203df1ce-197b-11e7-855e-4824bbb5d748_story.html

The Picturesque Gardens of Aleppo

1,000 Days to Go

PS A view of the picturesque gardens of Aleppo, circa 1914. (source: National Geographic)

1 – Is there any reason to believe Trump has been compromised by the Russians? (Answer: No there are over 1300 reasons.)

2 – Where were we on September 10, 2001? Not physically, but as a nation, as a people. It seems like a quaint naive time, now, looking back.

Okay let’s look at number one: Has Trump been compromised by the Russians? Yes, 1300 times yes.

A new book by Craig Unger makes the case. It’s called, “House of Trump, House of Putin.” Unger is a journalist who decided to see what evidence there was for Russian collusion with Trump. What he found, via public sources, is startling. Much of it is old news. Things we’ve heard in bits and pieces, but Unger knits it together in a compelling narrative that connects the dots.
He makes two very compelling points:
Trump was four billion dollars in debt. No bank would loan him money. The Russian mob came to his rescue and bought real estate. One thousand three hundred times they bought real estate. Now, if you are Donald Trump, a man reputed to keep a close watch on everything that goes on in Trump Tower, and I would guess in the rest of his holdings to some degree, are you unaware that the people buying your crappy condos and whatnot are Russian? It strains credulity. He did say that he had no investments in Russia. That may be true, other than the Trump Tower Moscow deal that he was negotiating on or around the time he said he had no dealings there. The question that should have been asked was, “Did he have dealings with Russians?” Then the answer would have been over a thousand times yes.
Unger says that this started in 1984 when a Russian mobster came and bought several condos for six million in cash. It escalated from there. There’s a shadowy figure known as the boss of bosses of the Russian mob. He is reputed to be excellent at laundering money. Like many Russian operations there is always an element of plausible deniability. We’ve seen it time and again with Trump’s campaign staff, who were knowingly or unwittingly compromised by Russian agents.
While the buying of condos seemed to be the Russians favorite way of laundering money with Trump, let us not forget that Paul Manafort was running similar operations for the Ukrainian mob. Money came into Manafort’s account and a day or two later a piece of real estate was bought for the same price. Prosecutors familiar with money laundering say this is the classic scenario. It’s the walks and quacks like a duck kind of thing. Prosecutors say there is no other explanation that they know of to explain such actions. Let us also not forget that much of this money flowed through banks and off shore accounts connected to Cyprus, a well known Russian money laundering center, and one that Wilbur Ross, our Secretary of Commerce was intimately connected to, and probably still is.
There was a part of this that I didn’t understand until reading summaries of Unger’s book. Putin wanted to keep tab on what these oligarchs were doing with their money. He could do that indirectly via Bayrock, the real estate holding company through which many of the purchases were made. Why did Putin want this kind of information? It’s not clear to me at this point, but I suspect he probably wanted a piece of the action, like 50%, that’s his usual take.

World Trade Center – NYC Beam at WTC-Baltimore

The other point I wish to mention is what I saw in Baltimore yesterday. We are up here for a diabetes conference that Shelby is attending. Walking from the Convention Center back to our hotel I passed behind the World Trade Center ( btw There are 35 World Trade Center building in the U.S. This one is the five sided building by the harbor designed by I. M. Pei. ) On the side closest to the Pratt Street, which is the east west street nearest the building, there is a huge block of marble. Atop the block are two intertwined pieces of metal. As I approached, I knew what it was, part of the World Trade Center in New York that fell on September 11, 2001. Inscribed on the three sides of the block were the names of Marylanders that died that day; either in one of the two towers, or at the Pentagon, or on flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania. The last side had the timeline of events that day.

It’s been almost seventeen years. I’ve been thinking a lot, not about that, but about “the greatest generation” the men and women who struggled and fought, and put their all into World War II. What was different about them? As I looked at the block and the metal I thought about how our world has changed since 9/11. Would the greatest generation have reacted to this tragedy the way we, and our politicians have? I don’t think so.
The biggest change that our country has gone through since World War II seems to be one of attitude and understanding. Our politicians don’t work for us anymore. They don’t solve problems. When we face obvious threats we turn away. Are we cowards, unable to face the truth, or are our politicians bought off and are many of them, and us, so lied to that we believe the lies?
After nine eleven Cheney convinced W to invade Iraq. This destabilized the Middle East. The rise of Al Queda was a direct result of W’s dad’s decision to house U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia.
We also went into Afghanistan. This is now the longest running war in U.S. history. Russia was there before us. They lost lots, but we’ve lost a lot more. Is there any end in sight? No.
Conflict broke out in Syria, aided by Russian meddling. Obama asked Congress for authority to act against Syria. What did Congress do? It went on vacation. When they got back they criticized the President for taking action that was clearly in our best interest.
Since 9/11 we’ve either not acted, or acted inappropriately in many instances. There have been bright spots. Obama took out Bin Laden. But by and large, we’ve acted stupidly. Now we have a petulant child, a Russian stooge, in the White House. If we get rid of him, we have a guy who thinks that what we need is more Christ in our lives and the health care crisis in our country will be solved.

There is a huge ground swell of local folks running for office that never thought they’d run, and it is encouraging. Maybe, we can throw the rascals out. Maybe, we can actually get back to solving problems, real problems. It looks like it will be a long slog. There is some light, way down the tunnel, whether it’s sunlight or an oncoming train is yet to be determined. We must persevere. As Churchill said – when you are in hell, keep going.

Fight on Garth!

1,001 Days to Go

PS The World Trade Center NYC beam at the World Trade Center – Baltimore.

Yesterday, the Manafort jury went home without reaching a verdict. Veteran judicial types say that given the questions the jury has asked the judge, notably which pieces of evidence went with which counts, that led the lawyerly types to say the jury is going through the evidence and the charges very carefully.

Yesterday, Donald Trump insulted someone. (Okay, I don’t remember if he did or not, but you can be pretty sure he did.)

Also, Kelly Ann Conway made a statement typical for her. She thought it weird that people were paying attention to the president. Idiot.

But the most interesting thing for me was Ari Melber’s interview with Steve Bannon. First off, Ari did a really really good job, and he did some very wise strategic things. Mainly, he never got into giving his opinion directly. He never made a personal judgmental statement. Rather, he read Bannon’s earlier words to Bannon and asked how that squared with current events, etc. He replayed parts of the interview and once again didn’t give his opinion, but rather he asked a panel of three what they thought. Very smart.

This is the first time I have heard Bannon talk. I’ve seen quotes, but never really heard him speak at any length. From what I saw I would say he is very smart, Machiavellian, dispassionate, immoral, unethical, win at all costs kind of guy. He employed many of the tricks of the trade in terms of turning a question, that is typical of conservative folks who know their message and real motives aren’t popular.
Here are a few samples:
– Charlottesville: The president was correct to say that there were bad people on both sides because this was a discussion about Confederate monuments and what should be done with them.
– There was violence on both sides, look at the AntiFa movement.
– Roy Moore would have won Alabama had Mitch McConnell and Trent Lott gotten behind him.
– As to the woman accusers of Moore, “I don’t believe them.”
– The president’s tax cut was designed to bring the money corporations had off-shore so they could rebuild the infrastructure of our factories and economic base.
– If we can get our base: all the deplorables, and the Tea Party and everyone else to turn out in November we can win.

Let’s sweep through just those comments:
– The meeting in Charlottesville was a nationwide gathering of racists for the purpose of promoting their various hateful agendas. Among them were white nationalism, anti-jewish sentiment, anti-black sentiment, and part of this, a very small part, was the idea that the statues to the Confederacy should stay where they are. These people are hateful, violent, and were looking for trouble. The killed a person, beat others, and when people defended themselves and fought back people like Bannon say there was violence on both sides.
– The AntiFa movement was started in the 1930s as a reaction to the Fascist regimes sweeping Europe at the time. It was and is people reacting with violence to violence perpetrated on others. Is it a good idea? Should one always turn the other cheek? I don’t know. Seems the Neo-Nazis in America are brave until someone punches them in the nose. Then they cry like little babies and say, “Unfair!” Although violence as an on going tool may not be the best way to handle most situations, I gotta think that sometimes it is helpful. Wasn’t it Buzz Aldrin who punched that idiot in the nose who kept saying we didn’t go to the Moon?
– Hey maybe Roy Moore would have won Alabama if he was shown not to be a predator of young girls. But he was. Don’t believe it? Why not Steve? Not convenient?
– As to not believing the women, this seems to be a classic move by extremists, when faced with facts they don’t agree with they simply say, “I don’t believe it.” Climate change, Republicans outspending Democrats, Iran nuclear deal was a good thing, – “I don’t believe it.” Next?
(Let’s not forget the Bannon has made numerous misogynistic statements throughout his life. An ex-wife even has statements in their divorce proceedings. These weren’t slight put downs of women, these were violent, demeaning statements and actions.)
– As far as the president’s tax cut rebuilding the industrial base of this country or any other such statement like that; I haven’t seen it. What I have seen is a massive amount of rebuying of company stock. Wages have not gone up, so it was no help to the middle class or the blue collar workers. In fact, it put more of the burden on them.
– Bannon wants to turn out all the dumb, ignorant, and naive people he can to vote for Trump. I agree with him there, but win in November? I don’t think so.

Moving on:
Hey Trump! Revoke my security clearance. I would consider it a badge of honor. Oh wait, do I have to insult you first? Haven’t I been doing that? Maybe not vociferously enough. You dog. You low life. I dare you to take away my security clearance.
Okay, I don’t have one. But you don’t know that – you idiot. So announce you’re taking it away. I was too young to make Nixon’s Enemies List, but I’m not too old to make yours! You five time deferment draft dodger. You got off for bone spurs. Which foot? You don’t know because there aren’t any. They didn’t magically disolve either. Did Michael Cohen arrange your deferments?
Come on. Revoke my clearance.
Just announce it.
If anything would show I’m a true patriot (as opposed to those phony patriots ) it would be to be announced as having my clearance revoked.

Then I could go on Fox and Friends and say how aggrieved I am at it being announced that I lost the clearance I didn’t have (that should put old Steve Doocy in a real tailspin trying to figure out what that means). I’d also tell them how I’m behind the president having a military parade. And I am!

I think we should give Mr. Trump the military parade he so desperately wants. Years ago, as a kid, my parents drove my brother and I up the road following the Hudson River. We stopped in all the little tourist traps and gift stores. The one I remember most vividly was Frontier Town. They had a rodeo. Even as a kid I thought it weird and sad. There were like five guys on horses with flags. They rode up and stood five abreast facing the reviewing stand that had us and maybe seven other people in it. The announcer went on about what each flag represented. I guess the guys were on horses. They were so small the riders could have put their feet out and almost touched the ground. The riders displayed an amazing amount of lack of emotion. This was also evident when later in the day “They shot up the town.” Two men stood out in the street facing each other. One of them said in a regular voice, “Hey, this town isn’t big enough for the two of us.” Nobody really noticed. Then the two men drew their guns and shot them. The bang bang made folks walking along the wooden sidewalk turn to see what was going on. I think one of the guys fell down. The other guy turned and left. The guy who fell down got up and went over to the side. Everyone started milling along the sidewalk as before. Sad.
I took my kids to Frontier Town some forty or fifty years after I had been there. It had the same sad rodeo, the same sad shoot-up-the-town, and something I had forgotten – the horse ride. The kids got on a horse that had a sway back that looked like a U. The horse walked on a trail that was no longer a trail but a trench about 18 inches deep. I don’t think the horse could have climbed out of it without it’s belly hitting the edge of the trench. The person leading the horses around was unemotional like everyone else that worked there. There was no hello. You got on the horse and the guy wordlessly led the kids off. They were equally unemotional. It’s contagious. ie lack of enthusiasm.
I think we should hire Frontier Town to put on a military parade for our president.
I think it would be befitting him.
Sad.

I was seventeen, almost 18, when the Democrats held their convention in 1968. Afterwards I heard about the protests and the police brutality, but that’s not what I remember about the convention. We still had a black and white TV. I watched the opening of the convention. Here’s a music trivia question for you, “Who sang the National Anthem at the Democratic National Convention in 1968?”
I’m surprised that question is asked more.

The Manafort trial is with the jury and they are asking questions that is apparently typical of a jury in this sort of trial. Things like, “What is a reasonable doubt?”
Meanwhile John Brennan, the former CIA Director who had his security clearance stripped by Trump, is saying that anyone who doesn’t think there wasn’t collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians is “Hogwash.” Others have said, and maybe he has too, that the only question is, “Does it meet the legal definition of a crime?”
I’m glad to see we are back where we started asking this central question. A new book is out about Trump, the Russians, and Putin. It points out that Trump has been taking Russian money for three decades and laundering it. There are whole floors in Trump Tower and around the world that have condos purchased for cash by Russians.
For me the central question is about the servers in Trump Tower. The ones that were set up to talk to AlfaBank during the campaign. They were set up in a very peculiar way; so that they’d only be able to talk to AlfaBank. The traffic on them was very high before a primary and before the Republican Convention. Why is that? What was being transmitted? We know it was a lot of data.
When the Trump organization was asked about it, they denied any such server existed. The server immediately went silent. Only to have another server that looked just like it come up. When asked about that server; it was denied, and it went silent. Someone had to set up those servers. Who? I’ll bet Paul Manafort knows.
Who else in the Trump organization knew about those servers? Certainly, Trump Sr knew. Did Donnie? How about Betsy DeVos? Her health care companies had the data that allowed Trump to link social security numbers and names to Facebook accounts. Certainly, Nigel Farage knew something. He was caught coming out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, and couldn’t recall why he had been in there. The next day Julian Assange released Clinton emails. None of the people mentioned are smart enough technically to have set up those servers or crisscrossed the data. Someone was; who was it? Did Trump get someone from one of those Russian condos to come in and do it? Was it one of the GRU folks indicted in the Mueller probe? We don’t know, yet.

As to the person who sang the National Anthem at the Democratic Convention in ’68 – Aretha Franklin.
The way she sang it; no one could follow the timing. She didn’t sing in the pocket, but rather held back so she could let run and hold the last note of a line. The crowd was confused because they had tried to sing along. They eventually stood there smiling comically, because when Aretha sang you weren’t going to sing along. You were going to listen. She was in the class of Mahalia Jackson, Marian Anderson, Leontyne Price, and Ella Fitzgerald.

I can see her in – was it The Blues Brothers? – where she’s walking on the lunch counter singing? Classic.